Special Report: Climate change is pushing seas ever higher, threatening coastal areas worldwide. The American epicenter is south Louisiana.

The New York Times and @nolanews collaborated to bring attention to the ecological crisis facing this vital region.
http://
nyti.ms/2CfmatT

9:50 AM - Feb 24, 2018

The New York Times
✔
@nytimes
A football field’s worth of Louisiana wetlands vanishes every 100 minutes, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Here’s how one fishing village is fighting for more time.
http://
nyti.ms/2GFYgph

pic.twitter.com/NQcx1orVij
9:58 AM - Feb 24, 2018

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

There is a positive feedback loop. As the ice shrinks warm air from the south does not cool as it heads north which melts more ice so that the warm air from the south stays even warmer as it heads north and melts more ice....................

Temperatures soar above zero as Arctic experiences one of its warmest winters ever

The relative heat wave has resulted in the warmest February on record since 1958, with temperatures reaching up to 35 F (1.7 C) to 40 F (4.4 C). What has astounded scientists is that no sunlight reaches the ground during this month.

The northernmost land outpost, Cape Morris Jessup, remained above freezing for a full 24 hours on 25 February.

Overall, temperatures in the whole region were above zero C on nine separate days during the month, which has never happened before.

Sea ice usually expands during this time period until at least mid-March, but measurements show that ice in the Bering Sea and just north of Greenland has actually decreased.

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Both evolution and climate change are always (so far) openly discussed at national parks.

Last year at one of the California national parks we visited, a religious group had a table set up in front of one of the visitor centers and was passing out flyers contradicting evolution (and maybe climate change). I'm sure they had to have a permit to do that. There weren't many takers. They were pleasant enough, but I think we just ignored them, although it's possible I quietly took one to read. I like a good laugh once in a while.

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FIFY.

"The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press." - Ida B. Wells-Barnett, journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, feminist and founder with others of NAACP.

"The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press." - Ida B. Wells-Barnett, journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, feminist and founder with others of NAACP.

This team of researchers extracted ice cores from the glaciers on Mt. Hunter, in Alaska. The ice cores held snow and ice from as far back as 400 years. The researchers showed that the amount of water melt currently is 60 times greater than it was prior to 1850. They also found that the summertime temperature changes on Mt. Hunter are almost 2°C per century (about 3.5°F). To put this in perspective, the temperatures are rising about twice as fast as global temperature.

The fact that temperatures on these northern mountains is rising faster than the globe as a whole is something predicted by climate models. The reason it warms so fast in these locations is that as the warming starts, snow begins to melt, exposing dark soil, which absorbs more sunlight, leading to more warming. We call this a feedback loop. There are other feedbacks at play, including changes to vertical temperatures in the air, changes to clouds, and changes to atmosphere currents. These areas were predicted to warm particularly fast, and the measurements confirm the predictions.

The authors recognized that during the summer, the top layer of snow and ice can melt. The liquid water permeates the ice beneath it and refreezes, creating a more solid ice layer than before. Because the bands of solid ice are formed from melting snow, more bands of solid ice mean that summer temperatures were above freezing when the ice bands formed. Measuring the number and thickness of these bands through time gives information about how warm the summer temperatures are.

So basically, the authors used these annual ice-core bands to deduce temperatures as far back as 400 years ago. They found that the frequency of melting events increased by 57-fold from the 1650–1850 time period compared with 1980–2011. They also measured a 60-fold increase in total melt. These are staggering numbers. I asked the lead author, Dominic Winski to summarize his findings and he told me, "This research shows that peaks in the Alaska Range sustain additional summertime warming through links with rising ocean temperatures in the tropics. Not only have we learned that summers are much warmer on Mt. Hunter than they were hundreds of years ago, but our research also demonstrates how connected the climate system is, with changes in certain parts of the world affecting places thousands of miles away."

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

The military paid for a study on sea level rise. The results were scary.
By Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis April 25 at 2:00 PM

More than a thousand low-lying tropical islands risk becoming “uninhabitable” by the middle of the century — or possibly sooner — because of rising sea levels, upending the populations of some island nations and endangering key U.S. military assets, according to new research published Wednesday.

The threats to the islands are twofold. In the long term, the rising seas threaten to inundate the islands entirely. More immediately, as seas rise, the islands will more frequently deal with large waves that crash farther onto the shore, contaminating their drinkable water supplies with ocean saltwater, according to the research.

The islands face climate-change-driven threats to their water supplies “in the very near future,” according to the study, published in the journal Science Advances.

The study focused on a part of the Marshall Islands in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Hilda Heine, president of the Marshall Islands, said in an interview that Wednesday’s journal article “brings home the seriousness” of the predicament facing her island nation.

On Tuesday, the Mauna Loa Observatory recorded its first-ever carbon dioxide reading in excess of 410 parts per million (it was 410.28 ppm in case you want the full deal). Carbon dioxide hasn’t reached that height in millions of years. It’s a new atmosphere that humanity will have to contend with, one that’s trapping more heat and causing the climate to change at a quickening rate.

In what’s become a spring tradition like Passover and Easter, carbon dioxide has set a record high each year since measurements began. It stood at 280 ppm when record keeping began at Mauna Loa in 1958. In 2013, it passed 400 ppm. Just four years later, the 400 ppm mark is no longer a novelty. It’s the norm.

“Its pretty depressing that it’s only a couple of years since the 400 ppm milestone was toppled,” Gavin Foster, a paleoclimate researcher at the University of Southampton told Climate Central last month. “These milestones are just numbers, but they give us an opportunity to pause and take stock and act as useful yard sticks for comparisons to the geological record.”

Earlier this year, U.K. Met Office scientists issued their first-ever carbon dioxide forecast. They projected carbon dioxide could reach 410 ppm in March and almost certainly would by April. Their forecast has been borne out with Tuesday’s daily record. They project that the monthly average will peak near 407 ppm in May, setting a monthly record.

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

This bill — the Climate Change is Real Act — would require the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reinstate information about climate change that was removed or redacted from the EPA website since the inauguration of President Donald Trump within 30 days of enactment. The EPA would be required to maintain information acknowledging the impact of human activities on climate and the planet, links to assist local governments in preparing for rising temperatures and more severe weather, and detailed descriptions of climate change risks.

"The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press." - Ida B. Wells-Barnett, journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, feminist and founder with others of NAACP.

"The rain gauge in Hanalei broke at 28 inches within 24 hours," said state Rep. Nadine Nakamura of the North Shore community. "In a neighboring valley, their rain gauge showed 44 inches within 24 hours. It's off the charts."

Actually, it was even worse. This week the National Weather Service said nearly 50 inches of rain fell in 24 hours.

Now, as Kauai continues to recover, scientists warn that this deluge on April 14 and 15 was something new — the first major storm in Hawaii linked to climate change.
"Just recognize that we're moving into a new climate, and our communities are scaled and built for a climate that no longer exists," said Fletcher, a professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Everglades under threat as Florida's mangroves face death by rising sea level
The ‘river of grass’ wilderness and coastal communities are in peril, with the buffer coastal ecosystems on a ‘death march’ inland

Mangroves in south-east Florida in an area studied by the researchers have been on a “death march” inland as they edge away from the swelling ocean but have now hit a manmade levee and are likely to be submerged by water within 30 years, according to the Florida International University analysis.

“There’s nowhere left for them to go,” said Dr Randall Parkinson, a coastal geologist at FIU. “They are done. The sea will continue to rise and the question now is whether they will be replaced by open water. I think they will.

“The outlook is pretty grim. What’s mind boggling is that we are facing the inundation of south Florida this century.”

Mangroves are made up of coastal vegetation that grows in salty or brackish water. They are considered crucial buffers to storms and salt water intrusion, as well as key habitats for certain marine creatures.

That mangrove area is just east of the Homestead Air Reserve Base.

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

'Project Trumpmore' Raising Funds to Carve US President's Face on Melting Iceberg
Published on Tuesday, May 01, 2018 by Common Dreams

"Let's build the biggest ice monument ever to test if climate change is real," says Finnish group behind the effort

To expose the outsize role the U.S. president is playing in the willful destruction of planet Earth's natural systems by dragging his feet on addressing the crisis of global warming, a climate activist group in Finland has announced plans to carve Donald Trump's face onto a floating iceberg in the Arctic.

"We want to build the monument for all of us, so we can see how long the sculpture lasts before melting. Often people only believe something when they see it with their own eyes." —Nicolas Prieto, Project Trumpmore

Creating a Mount Rushmore-like monument on a large piece of melting ice, argues the group, is a great way to "demonstrate that climate change is happening" while also putting the onus on one of the most powerful people in the world who refuses to act.

Pablo Rodas-Martini
@pablorodas
105 years ago there was a person much much smarter than Trump or Pruitt!

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"The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press." - Ida B. Wells-Barnett, journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, feminist and founder with others of NAACP.

During a hearing before the House Science, Space and Technology Committee on how technology can be used to address global warming, Brooks tried to convince Philip Duffy, the president of the Woods Hole Research Center and a former senior adviser to the Global Change Research Program, that soil and rocks falling into the ocean off of cliffs along the coast of California was causing sea levels to rise. He also argued that sedimentary and silt from large rivers, like the Mississippi, were contributing to the problem.

“Every time you have that soil or rock or whatever it is that is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise, because now you have less space in those oceans, because the bottom is moving up,” Brooks said, according to the report.

During a hearing before the House Science, Space and Technology Committee on how technology can be used to address global warming, Brooks tried to convince Philip Duffy, the president of the Woods Hole Research Center and a former senior adviser to the Global Change Research Program, that soil and rocks falling into the ocean off of cliffs along the coast of California was causing sea levels to rise. He also argued that sedimentary and silt from large rivers, like the Mississippi, were contributing to the problem.

“Every time you have that soil or rock or whatever it is that is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise, because now you have less space in those oceans, because the bottom is moving up,” Brooks said, according to the report.

Brooks needs to do some math. Those rocks and silt are too small in volume to be significant. Also, while some shorelines are eroding into the seas other shorelines are growing when the seas deposit material onto the beaches.

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Adam Schiff
✔
@RepAdamSchiff
Clearly, we have been taking the Science Committee’s understanding of climate change for granite. And while I appreciate the sediment, maybe we should leave climate science to the professionals.

"The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press." - Ida B. Wells-Barnett, journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, feminist and founder with others of NAACP.